Smarts, Doesn't It?
by DramaLexy
Summary: Post-Episode 7 - "Six Degrees of Separation" fic. Kara&Lee friendship. Complete
1. Part One

TITLE: Smarts, Doesn't It?

AUTHOR: DramaLexy

DISCLAIMER: Oh, IF ONLY I owned this show…but I don't, so don't sue.

SUMMARY: Post-Episode 7 "Six Degrees of Separation" fic. Kara/Lee friendship.

DISTRIBUTION: If you want it, be my guest. Just let me know where.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I did some digging into the ring that Kara was wearing at the end of "You Can't Go Home Again" and didn't find any singular consensus as to its origin and meaning. So I made up my own lore. PLEASE send feedback!

_

* * *

_

_"Every day you spend in that bed is another day that I have my opinion of you confirmed."_

And even though she knew it was reverse psychology, it was very good reverse psychology. The last thing that Lieutenant Kara Thrace needed was to confirm anything that Colonel Paul Tigh thought. So she'd gotten her ass out of bed and taken a pair of crutches from her doctor with a minimum of colorful expletives, and now she was hobbling towards the hangar deck to see what the hell was being done to 'her' Cylon raider.

_And if Lee opens his mouth, I'll kick the crap out of him on the spot,_ she thought to herself. _In fact, I still owe him one from the last time I saw him…_

As irritating as his hovering and ribbing had been, she was glad that he was there. For a good few hours when she was trapped on that planet, she'd been convinced that she'd never see him again. She'd even pictured her own funeral – now that would have been a sorry affair. But the part that had gotten her to keep going, keep fighting to find some way off that uninhabitable rock, was the thought of Adama and Lee at that funeral. She'd caused them to lose enough already – she was going to get home no matter what.

She'd been having nightmares about the crash, not that she was going to tell anyone else that. Dreams about falling from the sky in her crippled Viper, the fighter burning up around her as it went through an atmospheric entry that it wasn't designed for. She hadn't actually felt the heat, thanks to her suit, but she knew she was lucky not to have been incinerated in the stratosphere. It was all about timing – getting low enough that she wouldn't need the fighter's protection from the scorching heat of falling through the steadily-thickening atmosphere, all the while praying that the Viper would hold together for that long so she could safely eject. The Lords had definitely been with her on that flight, from beginning to end.

The ring that Kara was wearing on her thumb had started to slip off her finger, and she paused for a moment, precariously balanced on her crutches, in order to attach the silver band to the chain for her dog tags. Jewelry on deck was a no-no, but she wasn't letting go of the ring. It had been Zak's, and she'd had it with her in one way or another (on her finger, on her chain, even tucked into a pocket if she really needed it out of the way) since his death. It had been on her dog tags when she'd gone out on the training run with her students…wait, had that really been a week ago?

_Frak, I really have been sitting around for too long._

The doctors had taken everything off of her when she'd returned to Galactica. She wasn't sure how Adama had gotten the ring, considering her tags had been returned to her at the Life Station, but she was glad he had. During his visit, slipping the band back into its customary position on her finger had been a silent sign that things between them were okay. They'd never forget what she'd done, but time had passed, the world had ended, and more grudges between members of their little 'family' weren't going to bring Zak back.

_Speaking of…_

She almost wasn't surprised to see Commander Adama walking towards her in the corridor, and momentarily wondered if he'd put Tigh up to his earlier visit. Her knee protested as she came to a stop, and Kara tried to hide a grimace as she shifted her weight off of it. "Afternoon, Sir," she greeted the commander, getting her balance squared away before raising a hand to salute him.

"Whatcha hear, Starbuck?"

"Nothing but the rain, Sir."

"And how do you feel?" She looked up in surprise – that wasn't his line.

"F-fine, Sir." Adama smiled, indicating her busted knee with a wave of his hand.

"Smarts, doesn't it?" _I'm going to kill Lee. They won't even find his body…_

"Yes, Sir."

"Good. If it hurts, you know you're still alive." Kara couldn't help but crack a smile at that. If the comment had come from anyone else, she probably would have decked them. And they both knew it.

"Yeah."

"Carry on, Lieutenant."

Adama moved past her, making his way back towards the CIC, and Kara continued on her journey to the deck. Maybe if her leg was still working by 1900 hours, she'd see if the Commander wanted to get dinner with her and his son. She knew that they still had a lot of things to talk about.

_Of course, that's assuming that Lee's still alive by 1900 hours. These things might actually become the 'crutches of death.'_

* * *

"Hey." Lee looked up from his spot crouched underneath the raider with Cally and Tyrol when he saw Kara approach. His surprise in seeing her was evident in both his face and his voice, and Kara was NOT going to let him get another one of his badly-delivered clichés out. 

"Shut up, all of you," she replied. "Not one single word from any of you, okay?" The Specialist and CPO were both trying to hide smiles. Lee wasn't bothering with concealing his, but she hadn't really expected him to. "What seems to be the problem?"

"Well, your new boyfriend's a bit of a jerk, Sir," Tyrol told her, and Kara realized that she felt better already. For her, just being on the hangar deck again was almost as good as the Life Station's 'magic pills.' Almost.

"It's a girl," she shot back, and they got to work.

* * *

TBC... 


	2. Part Two

**AN: Okay, so everyone twisted my arm enough, and as per request, I've decided to try to continue the story. Hopefully I'll have another part done before Friday's episode, but life might get in the way of that plan. We'll see. In any case, hope you enjoy.**

* * *

Kara had never expected that she'd get the Raider to work again. Considering all the difficulties everyone else had had, she was just humoring them when she climbed up inside the bio-mechanoid ship. The jolt when the engines had lit had not been appreciated by her knee, and she'd had a few obscene gestures for Tyrol when he warned her not to shoot anything, but considering the fact that messing around with that Cylon fighter was the closest she was going to get to flying for the next several weeks, it had been a good day. 

"You're getting pretty good at those," Lee told her as they walked down the hallway towards the offices outside the CIC.

"Shut up, Lee."

"No, seriously, we should have a race or something."

"Lee, quit while you're…actually, considering you're not ahead of the game, you definitely should just quit." He smirked, knocking on the door to Adama's office as they came to it.

"Come in," they heard him call from inside. He looked surprised to see the two officers before him. They were both in off-duty clothes, since they'd needed showers after their day with the Raider, and it was always nice to see people who'd found something to smile about. He didn't see a lot of those these days. "To what do I owe…"

"We were wondering if you wanted to come down to the mess with us, Sir," Lee told his father. "Eat something other than just a cup of coffee." Adama smiled.

"Dinner, hmm? I think an old man may be persuaded away from his paperwork." They headed back out into the corridor. "How are you holding up?" he asked Kara.

"My leg's still attached," she replied. "That's about all I can say for it."

"From what I hear, it wasn't hampering your flight performance any." Kara smirked.

"When was I flying, Sir? I don't recall ever getting off the deck."

"You still got a lot closer than I've been in years, Starbuck." She nodded.

"If it was up to me, Sir, I'd put you on the rotation, but the CAG's way too uptight for that."

"I am not uptight!" Lee shot. Adama just smiled, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Son, you have no room to argue that point." Kara snickered.

Dinner conversation had touched on a variety of subjects from Kara's Raider, to the rumors of newly brewed ambrosia on the ship, to the more frequent card games that had been held over the past few days since the infamous Starbuck was out of commission. The mood was light, the company was good, and the real world could almost be forgotten, if only for an hour or so. 

Adama finally had to return to the CIC, and Lee wasn't going to let Kara sucker him into a card game. He'd planned on walking her back to the bunks (she'd gotten tossed out of the Life Station – the doctor said they needed the beds for people who were actually hurt) but some situation came up on the flight deck that required his presence, and so Kara got herself back to the squad room. She only realized how tired the day had made her when she finally crawled into her rack. After a single game of solitary pyramid, she fell sleep.

* * *

Things easily fell into a routine, even if flying wasn't part of it. She got up with the early shift pilots and instead of her usual run around the ship, headed to the training room to get some time in with the weights. After a shower and a quick breakfast, she would head back down to the flight deck to get more work done on her Raider. The first few days were spent trying to map out the schematics for the fighters controls, and since Kara was still the only one who had gotten it to work, Tyrol definitely needed her help. 

"That's weapons," Kara told him as she stood at a console.

"You know that for sure?" Tyrol wasn't taking any chances. He'd had enough holes blown in the side of his deck for a lifetime. He wasn't surprised, though, when Kara shot him a look that could freeze a sun.

"Yeah, I think I'd remember."

Cally and one of the other crewmen were working on resealing the fatal hole in the Raider's 'head,' as well as cleaning up the blood that had run from it. Tyrol and Kara were trying to figure out how much biological stuff could be removed from the fighter and still allow it to fly. Lee wanted the thing to be space-worthy as soon as possible – there was no telling when having their own Raider would come in handy. Kara wasn't sure who would get the honor of taking her newest toy out on the first test flight, but she was damn sure going to be the one to train them. One scratch on her Raider, and there'd be hell to pay.

"This is the power-up sequence," she told Tyrol as they went over a collection of notes together. He had a layout of the Raider's innards. One of the pilots that had come in way too hot the previous week had been in charge of making that layout. Kara wished she'd been there to see it.

"Okay, so we need all this," he replied, indicating an area on the clipboard he was holding.

"Yeah, but this can go." Kara made a mark on the page.

The rest of the morning was spent going through each system – power, life support, weapons, and flight controls – and determining what was expendable. Even after Kara's shift ended, she stuck around to see with which crewmen Tryol would stick the task of 'surgery' on the Raider. Everyone on deck was trying to make sure they stayed on the CPO's good side. It was highly comical.

_It's probably a good thing that I'm not in his shoes,_ Kara thought to herself at one point. _I would have WAY too much fun with this._

* * *

She found Lee in the training room when she headed down there for another workout after leaving the deck. She'd ditched one of her crutches, finding that she could balance herself better without it. 

"Hey, Lee?" He looked up just before he felt the back of her hand touch his face, smearing something from the Raider that he didn't even want to think about across his cheek.

"Thanks, Kara," he sarcastically replied as he reached for a towel. She laughed, taking a seat at one of the other machines. "So I take it you guys are making progress down there?"

"Yeah. You figure out who's going to be taking my toy out for a test drive yet?"

"Well, on the risk of making your head swell to the point of not fitting through the door, I'll tell you that you're the best pilot in the fleet."

"Flattery will get you nowhere." Lee grinned.

"Since when?" Kara threw a towel at him. "In any case, trying to figure out who comes in number two hasn't been easy."

"You know that's you. No question."

"I doubt it would go over well with the rest of the squad if I wound up assigning myself to the flight."

"Why not? In case you haven't noticed, Lee, there haven't been a lot of people lining up to go crawling around in the guts of a Raider."

"True. So far, maintenance on the thing has been a punishment."

"See? I'm sure everyone would be glad to have our fearless CAG volunteer for the assignment."

"You're a brat, you know that?"

"Oh, you haven't seen anything yet."

"I haven't?"

"No, because before you even think about starting up the engines on that thing, you're gonna have to learn how to fly it. I want her back in perfect condition after this test, you understand me?" Lee smirked.

"Glad you're so concerned with my well-being, Lieutenant."

* * *

TBC... 


	3. Part Three

A couple mornings later, after Lee finished the early shift pilot briefing, Kara came into the briefing room to start his training. Sharon was on a Raptor patrol, so she'd managed to recruit Boxey to be her assistant. And she knew it was going to be an entertaining morning.

"It's kinda nice, me being up here, you being down there," she told Lee with a grin as she took a seat at the podium. Her sunglasses were perched atop her head, and she would have brought a stogie if she wasn't already running low on them.

"You're enjoying this far too much, Lieutenant."

"There's no such thing as too much, Sir. Remember all those little jokes you were cracking in the Life Station? Payback is a close and personal friend of mine." She nodded to Boxey, and he stepped forward to hand Lee a clipboard. "What you are holding is a schematic of the power system for my little souvenir, and a revised edition of my notes for power-up. As you can see, it's nothing like a Viper. Power-up seems to be the thing that's given everyone else so much trouble, so we'll spend today on that. Although I hear Tyrol got her started yesterday." She turned to Boxey. "What's Sharon told you about the hangar deck?"

"That it's off limits." Kara smiled.

"Good. Then we'll just have to make sure you don't actually step foot on deck."

* * *

The deck crew had been trying to install hardware in the Raider that could be used for tracking and communications. Command wanted to make sure that Dradis and the Vipers could tell their Raider apart from other Raiders if they all wound up in a combat situation. While the crewmen cleared out to allow Kara and Lee their training time, she looked up to make sure that Boxey was where she wanted him. She had told the boy to be her eyes and ears outside of the Raider, which could now fit two people, so he was seated on the edge of a walkway on the second level of the hangar deck. She could appreciate the look of wonder in his eyes as he watched everything going on down below him – growing up with them, the kid was destined to become a pilot.

"She's all yours," she told Lee, and watched as he climbed up into the Raider. She tried to push away the memory that popped up in her mind of the last time she'd watched Zak get into a Viper. She'd never get anything accomplished if she started thinking about the past.

Climbing in behind Lee, she left the hatch open so that she could leave her bum leg straightened out and dangling through it. He was checking out the controls, carefully looking over her notes. There was no doubt in Kara's mind that he was just as good of a pilot as she was. The only difference was, for her it came naturally and for him it took work.

"Got everything figured out?" she asked him. He slid backwards slightly, making sure his feet were in the rear controls while still having a comfortable grip on the forward ones.

"I think so."

"Run through the sequence with me first, then you can actually do it."

A couple minutes later, Boxey grinned as he heard the engines ignite and saw the Raider begin to strain against the metal structure that kept it from leaping into the air. He'd already decided that the hangar was his favorite place on the ship.

* * *

The Galactica was a big ship, but it suddenly seemed very small when the rumor mill got working. By the following afternoon, there were stories going around the squad and deck crew as to what their CAG and squadron leader were really doing inside that fighter. Lee and Adama's desperate search for Kara was still fresh on everyone's minds, and only added more fuel to the fire.

"Just ignore it," Lee told Kara one night as they took a walk down the corridor to let her temper cool off. He'd just barely gotten to the bunkroom in time to keep her from pummeling one of the pilots that had decided it would be in his best interest to make a smart-ass comment about the pilot's position in the Raider. "If that's the best they can come up with to entertain themselves, then just let them. I thought you were going to make your trips to the brig less frequent."

"This is less frequent," she shot back.

"You should hear some of the other stuff that's been said."

Kara raised an eyebrow. "Are we part of the grapevine often?"

"Yeah. Usually I just make sure you don't get wind of it because I don't need half my pilots winding up in the Life Station with broken jaws."

"How'd you get so good at ignoring ship gossip?" she asked.

"I don't know. Sometimes they really do go too far, but I know it's not true, and I know you're the best friend I've got left in the universe, and that's all that matters." Kara smiled. "Now, can you go back to your rack without punching anyone?"

"I make no promises."

* * *

The next day was the first space test of the Raider since Kara had brought it to the ship. She was up in the CIC, with Adama and Tigh. There were three ships already out on CAP, and Lee would have another Viper and Raptor as escorts during the test. Boomer and Crashdown where in the Raptor, and Kat was in the Viper.

"Viper one away," Gaeta reported to Adama. "Viper two away." The Raider obviously couldn't use the launch tubes, and instead had to take off from the flight deck. It took a few moments longer for, "Raider away."

The first objective was just to get a feel for the flight controls. After that, he could try maneuvers. "I never thought I'd admit this," Lee's voice came over the wireless, "But this thing's actually more maneuverable than a Viper. Not a Mark VII, but it definitely puts the Mark IIs to shame."

"Watch yourself, Apollo," Boomer told him with a smile. "Your Viper might take offense."

He laughed. "Kara, I will say it again: when you take a souvenir, you really don't screw around." She caught the hint of a smile that Adama gave her.

"You still maintaining pressurization?" Kat asked Lee.

"Yeah, everything looks good so far." And then came the words that they all dreaded.

"Dradis contact!" Everyone in the CIC whipped around to look at Gaeta. "It's a Cylon Basestar!"

* * *

TBC... 


	4. Part Four

"Dradis contact!" Everyone in the CIC whipped around to look at Gaeta. "It's a Cylon Basestar!"

"Set the fleet to code one," Adama ordered. "Prepare to jump."

"They're launching Raiders," was the next bit of information Gaeta passed along.

"How long until they intercept?" Adama inquired of his staff.

"Not long enough," Dualla replied as she looked over the information she was getting from the rest of the fleet. "Only half the civilian ships will be ready to jump by the time they're on us."

"Launch the alert fighters," he ordered. "Let's see how much time we can buy ourselves." Adama then turned back to Dualla. "Tell Apollo to get back here, now. I don't want to tip our hand yet if we can help it."

"Yes, Sir."

* * *

"Apollo, Galactica, your orders are to return to base," Lee heard over his wireless system. 

"Roger, Galactica." As much as he didn't want to leave his pilots behind to deal with the Cylons themselves, he didn't have the experience for doing combat flying in a still-unfamiliar craft. He was attempting to get the hell outta Dodge when he heard Kat's voice over the wireless.

"I've got one on my tail!" she cried out, panic obvious. She didn't have any real combat experience, unlike the other pilots that were out there. She'd done pretty well in her training, but there was no substitute for real life. "I can't shake him!"

"Hang on, Kat. Keep trying to wipe him off," one of the other pilots told her. They were all too busy with their own targets to be able to immediately come to her aid; as always, the Colonials were severely outnumbered by the Cylons.

Lee made a split second decision and flipped his Raider end-over-end, heading back towards the battle. He knew he was going to have bruises from the maneuver; removing the unnecessary biological components had made the fighter a good deal more pleasant to have to sit in, but it had also left a lot more room to go flailing around in. They hadn't installed harnesses or anything of the sort yet, so holding yourself in the correct position took a lot of effort in quickly changing G-forces. During the 180-degree flip and roll, Lee banged his helmet against the wall hard enough to make his ears ring.

"Note to self; don't do that again if you can help it," he muttered. "Galactica, Apollo…I can't sit this one out. We need all the firepower we can get out here, or we're going to start losing pilots."

"Roger that, Apollo." He managed to shoot the Raider that was on Kat's tail, and knock out a couple others. A few enemy ships tried to fire at him, but more than anything else, they seemed to be confused. Lee was thankful that the Vipers could keep track of he was, even if the other Raiders couldn't.

"All civilian ships have completed the jump," a voice finally came over the wireless system. "Fighters, return home."

"Let's go, people," Lee transmitted the squad, easily falling into the position of leader.

They would think back on it later and realize how amusing it had to have looked to have a Cylon Raider heading up a bunch of Colonial Vipers on the way back to their Battlestar. At the time, everyone was just concentrating on not getting shot or blowing their landings – they were coming in fast and hard.

* * *

Kara was waiting down on the hangar deck when all the fighters came in. She'd felt like she was in the way up in CIC, and she wanted to make sure that the whole group was present and accounted for. Especially the CAG. 

Galactica had completed her own jump by the time they began to bring the Vipers down to the hanger deck. The pilots started climbing out of their cockpits while Tyrol and his crew milled around, checking for damages to add to the post-flight maintenance list. When Lee pulled himself out of the Raider, Kara was waiting below it, leaning on her crutch, a glare on her face that she usually only reserved for people she was about to hit.

"That was the absolute worst landing I've ever seen," she declared before he could even get both feet on the deck. "For the Gods sake, where did you learn to fly? Maybe you and Crashdown should switch call signs!"

In all honesty, Lee's landing had scared the hell out of her. He was an extremely capable pilot, yes, but the sight of the Raider slamming to the deck in a harder landing than she'd ever seen anyone pull off had brought up a lot of memories that Kara would rather leave buried. She didn't really care about the damage he'd undoubtedly done to either her souvenir or the flight deck – that could be dealt with later. She just wanted to make sure he was all right. Any kind of landing that he could walk away from would be okay with her.

Lee knew the landing had been bad (and he was sure that he'd have a good, long conversation with the Landing Signal Officer about it) but he hadn't known that Kara had been on deck to see it. Combat landings were supposed to be hard, and trying to pull one in the Raider had redefined the word. It was a pretty good guess that he was going to be sore as hell in the morning. He could also pretty easily deduce what must have been running through Kara's mind when she saw him come in.

However, Kara was pulling the 'tough' routine so far, and Lee could play their little game just as well as she could. As crazy as it sounded, the ritual of pretending was the only way they could let each other know what they were really thinking. Anger was really code for concern; they read each other better than anyone else in the universe.

"Sorry, Instructor," he shot back, going toe-to-toe with her, "But I don't think we got to that part of the lesson yet." And that little barb meant that he understood what she was actually trying to say to him. It was an apology in disguise.

"Next time you decide you want to go play hero, do it in someone else's bird." Forgiveness. It was amazing how much they could say without the words actually being said.

"It's all about your little toy, huh?" Lee asked with a grin as he took his helmet off. "I feel so used."

Now that his face was uncovered, Kara could see the gash near his hairline where he'd banged his head during the fight. A trail of blood was running down his forehead. "Frak, what'd you do?" she asked, reaching for it. Lee brushed her hand away before taking off his gloves and fingering the cut with a wince. Half-dried blood was left behind on his fingers.

"I'm fine," he insisted. "We've gotta rig up some kind of harnessing system in that thing before it gets declared combat worthy, though." Kara studied him for a moment. Lee was hard-headed enough that even if he did need stitches, he probably didn't have a concussion. He winced again as her fingers gently touched the wound and she couldn't resist the urge to rag on him, just a little bit.

"Smarts, doesn't it?" she asked.

He rolled his eyes with a sigh. "I walked right into that one, didn't I?"

Kara was grinning like the cat that ate the canary. "Oh, definitely."

"So are we even now, Lieutenant?"

"Only if you march yourself down to the Life Station and have them check out that hole in your head."

Lee raised an eyebrow. "I'm sorry; which one of us is supposed to be the higher ranking officer here?"

"You are, Sir, now go."

"If I talked to a CO like that, I'd get written up on insubordination."

"Yeah, but that's because your CO is the XO. And you wouldn't write me up."

"Oh no?"

"Nope. Getting on the bad side of your lead pilot would definitely be a bad idea."

He laughed. "You really are a brat, Kara, but there's nobody I'd rather have watching my back."

"Yeah, well, right now I'm supposed to be seeing your back as you head for the Life Station, so leave."

He finally was forced to concede. Kara watched as he did a quick post-flight briefing with Tyrol before leaving the hangar deck. She still had a little bit of his blood on her fingers, and had gotten a smudge on the ring that was around her thumb. She removed the band and considered it for a moment before putting it back on her dog tags. Lee had almost been her family once, and these days he was definitely the closest thing she was going to get. Living in a time after the end of the world, family – however you defined it – counted for a lot.

"Lieutenant?" She was broken out of her reverie by Tyrol's voice. "Are you on shift?"

"I can be," she replied. "If you need an extra pair of hands."

"You want to give me a hand with the post-flight for this thing? I'm still working on making up a checklist for it." Kara nodded.

"Sure. What's first?" And they got back to work.

* * *

FIN. 

Questions, comments, and (constructive) complaints are welcome. Hope you enjoyed.


End file.
